


Truce

by Davechicken



Series: The Pilot and his Knight [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 14:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6118594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Poe is sick, and Kylo has to take care of him. Kylo's never had to take care of someone like this before, and it's a little overwhelming for them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadow_Side](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Side/gifts).



“He’s fine,” the nurse says. “Really.”  


He does not look fine. Physically, maybe. His limbs are the same number they usually are, he has no extra or missing digits, and other than the too-blown pupils and the rush of blood to his cheeks and his parted lips… Poe looks superficially fine.

Until he stands up. And he _wobbles_ like someone had broken the gyroscope inside of his skull. And his hands go out slightly to the sides for _balance_ like he’s about to start making **zoom zoom** noises and imitating his X-Wing in front of everyone. 

“Can’t you check him over again?” the Dark Sider pleads.  


“I’m fiiiiiiiiine,” Poe says, voice sing-songing and lilting. “So fine, so fine, you drive me out of my _miiiiiiiind_.”  


“Seriously, he needs sedating.”  


“He needs to be taken home to sleep it off,” the nurse insists, and pushes the bottle of pills into his hand again. “Under close supervision. Make sure he–”  


“What? Doesn’t try to hump a shuttlecraft?”  


“X-Wing all the _way_ ,” Poe croons. “Nothing like those S-foils. Soooooo sweet. Maaaaan. Shame you can’t fit two in the c–”  


Kylo slaps a hand over Poe’s mouth in horror. Poe licks it. 

“Two tablets, every four hours. If he doesn’t come around in twenty-four hours, bring him back,” the nurse says, trying not to laugh.   


Kylo is mortified.

***

Somehow Kylo gets him home to their little quarters, and Poe only sings twice. He has a very nice singing voice. Kylo’s already well acquainted with it, but he doesn’t want the whole base to hear his rendition of:

_See the little Wompa_

_See his little feet_

_See his little toesie-wosies_

_It’s you he’s going to eat._

Kylo could live very happily never hearing that again, complete with hand-gestures. And that’s nothing compared to Poe’s absolute **filth** about the man from Nar Shaddaa. Has to be the pilot in him that knows such… sexually improbable ditties. Kylo always knew the man had a dirty mind, but there’s dirty and then there’s ‘throw me in the Sarlacc Pit because nothing will save me now’. 

Poe is pushed onto the couch, and he wraps his arms around Kylo in the attempt, and Kylo ends up dropping down to one knee and hissing internally about how _Poes lead to suffering_ and tries not to think about how he was attached to his kneecap, and not just in the emotional sense. Arms around his neck, and snuffly nose and mouth at his ear, and Poe probably thinks he’s being cute and sexy.

Poe is not being cute and sexy. Poe is being a slobbering wreck.

“I love you,” Poe says.  


It would be more reassuring and affirming if he didn’t immediately start to cry. Kylo doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve the sudden flood of tears, but Poe is howling and holding his hair and Kylo tries to hold him back, and ignore his own discomfort.

“I love you too,” he says, sounding terrified.  


“I love you so much.”  


“I know,” Kylo tells him, and tries to get him to lie back. That makes him howl all the more, and Kylo realises he’s now doomed to stay in this position until his joints seize forever, or Poe really does pass out, or the star ends its sequence and everyone dies anyway.   


“No, but I - I - **DO**.” Poe seems to think saying it louder means it means more. “I do. You’re so, so pretty. And hot. And smart. And that thing you do with your–” Kylo knows what he means. “…and you’re so _precious to me_ , you little ball of fluff, so hurting inside and you still love me and I’m just a pilot and you’re so good at the thing and you just want to be good and I want you to be good and I’m so glad you’re home…”  


This? Is worse than when Poe gets drunk. At least, then, there’s normally other drunken people around. And Kylo’s usually allowed himself to feel slightly inebriated, and the atmosphere isn’t _will he choke on his own vomit any time soon_ and more _yey we didn’t die on the last thing that could have killed us all_. 

“I know,” he says, and strokes him, very carefully. “I know.”  


“I think I need to be sick.”  


Great. “…’fresher,” Kylo says, and picks Poe up before the man can protest.

Under other circumstances, carrying Poe around in his arms would be pleasant. Instead, carrying him to the smallest room to be ill and hoping to get there before he is, is the furthest thing from great. Poe holds onto him, and curls against him, and whimpers. He looks so small and vulnerable, and Kylo wants to protect him, but he doesn’t - quite - know **how**. He slides against his mind, cautiously, but the mess he feels there is too confusing and jumbled. He could try to stay there, but it’s so loud and flighty that he’d risk un-doing his own balance, and going off-kilter, and then there’d be no one around to adult responsibly.

So instead he settles Poe down, and Poe sways and drops his head forward onto Kylo. He’s utterly out of it, and - thankfully - not vomiting.

Poe stays like that for a while. His dark, messy hair pressed into Kylo’s stomach. The position can’t be all that comfortable, but Poe seems to be entirely content. He strokes a hand gently through his hair, and murmurs something low and soothing. 

The man’s breathing slows, and Kylo isn’t sure how he’s doing it, but he is. He’s helping. He’s helping. He better damn well be helping, because he has _absolutely no clue_ how you do this. How you make someone else feel okay when their body is pulling itself open inside? How? He can barely make sense of _other people_ when they’re functioning as they’re expected to. He can barely make sense of **himself** , and now they think he can look after the Resistance’s best pilot, based solely on what they do in bed together?

Since when did losing your virginity somehow teach you how to - adult? How to mother? How to care? Surely it just showed you how to use your reproductive parts, and - **in any sane sense and the only sense he wanted to consider** \- convince another sentient being to join you in the act?

Were you supposed to wake up with the prescient, esoteric wonders of the universe in your head after you did the thing? Maybe a memo? Or were most people born with the _instinct_ deep down inside, and in him - like so many other things - the ability was **flawed** , or lacking? 

Poe picks up on his distress, sniffling, and Kylo drops down again to hold his face. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Do you need to be sick?”

“But… what about the pets?”  


“…the pets?”  


“On Coruscant. They did nothing wrong.”  


“…what?”  


“We domesticated animals, and then we let them all DIE, Kylo. We let them DIE. If they were free, they wouldn’t DIE.”  


“…no, I suppose not. But they might live in smaller numbers, and less fulfilled lives, and–”  


“WE KILLED ALL THE ANIMALS.”  


This goes on for some time before he can calm him down.

***

Poe goes through ideas fast. Kylo wonders if his mind is always like this, and there’s just no filter, or if the emergency treatment really _did_ fuck him up inside. He isn’t sure which is more horrifying.

The pilot insists Kylo re-organises their holo-collection with a new main filter based on lead actress, then lead actor, and then gets frustrated when there’s ensemble pieces, or when he can’t remember who is in a particular holo, and has apparently forgotten things like _looking the information up_. Every time. Kylo reminds him every time, and Poe still huffs at him.

Next comes telling him how his hair is nice. No, really nice. Like, super nice. And how it’s better now he doesn’t cover it up, and how Poe likes to use it to hold on when he’s fucking him, or riding his mouth. Under normal circumstances, this would be welcome. Right now, Poe’s about as sexually appealing as a dishcloth. He’s red-eyed and snotty from crying and he keeps wandering off onto weird tangents that have nothing to do with the existing topic of conversation. He’s wrapped in blankets (to make him moving away and hurting himself harder), with a cold towel over his brow. He’s not allowed anything but water, but he keeps telling Kylo in depth about his mother’s cooking. 

His mother’s cooking sounds wonderful, actually. Lots of spice and it’s apparently a Yavin thing, and Kylo actually remembers that. They got generic food a lot when they travelled around, but they got some of the local specialities, too. He remembers Yavin being one of his favourites, and he wishes they’d met back then. Maybe before Poe lost his mother. A different world, a different them.

“You’re not going to die, are you?”  


The question takes him aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not going to die. Are you?”   


“…do you mean right this ins–”   


Poe looks horror-struck. 

“…no.”  


“You’re going to go.”  


“No. Not… I’m not.”  


Poe is clearly on the edge of something, and Kylo swallows down his panic to move closer, to scoot in with him on the couch, and hold him close. 

“The Dark. Snoke.”  


“…I’m going to fight them,” Kylo reminds him, and strokes his arm. “I’m not going to give in to them, not again. Not now I have you to keep me straight.”  


Poe smiles very weakly. “Not straight.”

“…okay. Poor choice of words,” he admits.  


Poe wriggles around, getting comfortable. His eyes close, his lashes brushing his cheeks. “I don’t want to lose you. Not you. Lost so many good things. So many friends. Can’t lose you.”

“You’re not going to,” Kylo promises, and kisses his temple. “You’ve got me. I swear.”  


“You hurt so much. Sometimes I worry the good hurts you, as much as the bad.” Poe has a poor filter at the best of times, one of the reasons Kylo finds him so refreshing, but right now this is the water straight from the mountaintop, gushing down through the valleys and sweeping debris as well as clarity in its wake. “You’re so strong. He must want you back. You’re so strong, and you hurt, and I know you find us hard, and I know you don’t feel at home, and I worry I can’t make it right enough for you. I worry you will - I… what if I’m not enough?”  


“Poe…” Maker, even the thought that Poe might consider himself anything _less_ than nineteen thousand times better than Kylo deserves is agony. “You are. You are **more** than enough. I’d fall and climb up again from now until eternity, if that’s what it took to be worthy of _you_. You’re incredible. And I’m amazed you even want to talk to me.”  


“Always want to talk to you,” comes the quieter voice. “Just don’t always know what to say.”  


“Then say anything,” Kylo offers. “Absolutely anything. Tell me about your mother’s stew. Tell me about your dream of turning into an Ewok. Tell me about a cloud you saw that looked like my nose.”  


“It did!”  


“I’m sure it did.”  


“You told me to shut up!”  


“…have you ever thought that, perhaps, there’s times when I say one thing and mean another?”  


Poe clucks at him, and wriggles even deeper into his arms. “That’s bad, Kylo.”

“I know. So. Here and now, consider this an open and binding offer, in perpetuity: you can tell me any, all, and every thing you think of, or want to. No matter what it is. I don’t care. If you want to say it, you can say it.”  


“Anything?”  


“Anything.”  


Poe considers it, then sighs happily. “You’re better for me than you think you are.”

That… was… possibly true. “And you’re better for anything than you think you are. No matter how sure and confident you like to pretend you are. I love how you can do that, without putting anyone else down.”

A tiny squeak, and Poe has his arms around him. “Thank you,” he says, into his neck. “I’m glad I have you.”

“Not as glad as I am for _you_.”  


“…truce?”  


Kylo considers, then… “Truce.”


End file.
